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Students & Volunteers

A page devoted to the wonderful individuals, including UC Berkeley students, students at other institutions, and skilled professionals, who continue to invest their time, patience and expertise to further the mission of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Among those listed here are the UC Berkeley undergraduate students who participate in the Undergraduate Apprentice Research Program (URAP) at The Magnes.

To go directly to a specific entry, begin typing a name (e.g. "Haas," "Jewish Community Center," or "Emanu-El") in the filter box below. To search for a name or term that may not be included in a collection's title, use the search box at the top of this page, or go to the advanced search page.

Adah was born in Israel and moved to the United States when she was nine years old. She has always had an interest and passion for Jewish life, and is currently a second-year undergraduate student studying History and Jewish Studies. She is the Co-President of Tikvah, the Zionist voice on campus, and is an undergraduate fellow at the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. Adah enjoys playing flute and is a member of the UC Berkeley Wind Ensemble.

Aiko Gonzalez hails from the forests of Arnold, California, and is a Senior at UC Berkeley studying Political Science with a concentration in International Relations. Aiko hopes to combine her inquisitive nature of politics and society with her fascination of history. She has joined The Magnes in hopes of learning not only research methods but to also start the conversation of how history brought us to the present and connects with the future of society. Upon completion of her final year, Aiko will be teaching elementary school in San Jose, California.

Alex Makabeh, UC Berkeley Environmental Science and Pre-Medical major, worked on documenting a collection of over 150 artifacts from Iran. The materials are being inventoried, researched, catalogued, and shared across social media platforms, integrating the Magnes online collection catalog (magnesalm.org) with Flickr and Google Maps.

Andrea Daniel, who works at the American Cancer Society in Oakland, California, began volunteering with the Judah L. Magnes Museum in 2009, reorganizing the "vertical files" in the library, and altogether assisting the staff in preparation for the move of the collection to the University of California in the summer of 2010.

Anna Bella Korbatov, UC Berkeley class of 2015, studies Political Science. Anna Bella collaborated on a major inventory project devoted to the extensive collection of postcards at The Magnes. The over 3,000 postcards in this collection document Jewish life, sites, cityscapes, and cultures across the global diaspora.

Christine Liu, double major in History and Economics at UC Berkeley, worked on small archival collections, which document a wide variety of topics, ranging from art collecting in Southern California to Jewish history in Germany from the 18th through the 20th centuries.

Clayton Hale is a 4th year transfer at UC Berkeley from Sacramento, California majoring in History with a concentration in American History. Besides reading, Clayton is also interested in exploring the implications, connections, and connotations between History and foreign policy. Clayton joins The Magnes in the hopes of fostering applicable research skills in working with data, and discovering the historical treasures that reside within The Magnes.

"Begun in 1984, the Berkeley museum's volunteer-staffed Docent Outreach Program -- dubbed "the museum that comes to you" -- currently offers 15 different narrated shows, all but one with slides; each lasts between 30 and 45 minutes.

Erin Fagin, UC Berkeley History major, applied her knowledge of Yiddish to help catalog circa 100 previously uncatalogued Yiddish books and journals printed in California during the first half if the 20th century. The project is carried out with the participation of Magnes Graduate Fellow, Eli Rosenblatt.

Eva Gurevich volunteered as a Curatorial Intern in 2010-2011, and later was the Programs and Events Coordinator at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in 2011-2012, when she oversaw the opening of the new facility, as well as the planning of programs and events, space rentals and volunteer recruiting and training. Previously, Eva was the Gallery Coordinator at the Contra Costa JCC in Walnut Creek, and is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute in Photography.

Jason "Jackson" Block is a Business Administration student with Public Policy, Global Poverty & Practice, and Jewish Studies minors at the University of California, Berkeley. He is from Santa Clarita, CA and he has been actively involved in the Jewish community. He has served as president of Berkeley's Jewish Student Union since 2014, volunteers weekly with various non-profit organizations on and off campus, and works as an undergraduate fellow at the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.

Lauren Cooper, a Comparative Literature major and Spanish and History minor at UC Berkeley, created a digital companion to the Magnes Museum’s catalog, The Jewish World, integrating the Magnes collection database with social media platforms. She also contributed to the Spring 2015 exhibition, The Future of Memory. Lauren is now collaborating on the Fall 2015 exhibition, Biblical Lives, which is being planned by Magnes Graduate Fellow, Daniel Fisher.

Liora Alban has been involved in archival work at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life since 2012. Her time here has taught her the myriad of ways in which Jewish traditions simultaneously borrow from and shape Jewish material culture. She appreciates that The Magnes Collection offers space for her and others to explore their interests in aart and religious study.

Maia Rosengarten is a fourth year Political Economy major and Computer Science minor at UC Berkeley. After having the adventure of a lifetime during her Summer 2014 Birthright trip, she returned to Israel for four weeks to reconnect with family and learn more about her roots. When she’s not studying, she loves hiking in Marin County, cooking all day with friends, and going to the movies. She is proud to be a part of the thriving Jewish community at Cal.

Michelle is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley majoring in History and Classical Civilizations with a concentration in museology and education. Before volunteering at The Magnes, Michelle worked at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Nadine Melamed, a Near Eastern Studies major with an emphasis in Persian Language and Literature at UC Berkeley, has a deep interest in international Jewry, especially in relation to Iran and other parts of the Middle East. After graduation, Nadine hopes to return to Israel to learn Hebrew and Arabic.

Parker is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, where he studies geography and conservation resource studies, specializing in geospatial information science to help people understand our changing world through the acquisition, analysis, and visualization of spatial data. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, practicing yoga, and collecting passport stamps.

Petra Stefanova is an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley pursuing a degree in Anthropology. She is originally from the Czech Republic where she worked as a librarian prior to coming to United States in 2004. Her research interests include museum studies, historical archaeology, medical and psychiatric anthropology, and art and religion. Besides her academic interests, she likes to spend her free time reading, baking, watching foreign cinema, volunteering and going on outdoor adventures.

Xinyi Chen is an undergraduate student at Cornell University (Class of 2017). She plans to major in Near Eastern Studies and minor in Jewish Studies. In the academic year of 2014, she received the Herman and Phoebe Karpel Memorial Prize in recognition of superior performance in learning Modern Hebrew. Xinyi has been writing about current affairs in Israel as well as Jewish history, and working as a core member in a non-profit media organization that aims to the understanding of Israel in China, with a personal concentration in news, peace progress, art and literature.